A sitemap helps you to Google and other search engines discover and index your content faster, which can improve your site’s visibility on SERPs (Search engine results page).

Luckily, submitting a sitemap in 2024 is easier than ever if you’re using a WordPress plugin.

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through how to submit wordpress sitemap to Google using 3 simple steps.

Alright let’s dive in.

Key Takeaways

  • What is Sitemap? It’s like a map where Google or other search engines can understand your website’s structure such as important pages.
  • Sitemap lists all the important pages of your website, so search engine crawlers are able to find your pages and index them on search engines. 
  • WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO, AIOSEO and RankMath helped us to speed up the process to create your sitemap easily.
  • After creating your sitemap, Submitting it to Google Search Console takes just few simple steps, helping ensure your content is indexed quickly and efficiently

What is Sitemap?

Think of a sitemap as a roadmap for your website, it’s a list of all your pages, guiding search engines to find and understand your content. Just like a table of contents in a book, it organizes and highlights key areas, making sure nothing important is missed.

Why Sitemap is Important?

When search engines, like Google, use your sitemap, they can quickly see your site structure and understand which pages are most important. This can be useful for larger sites or ones with lots of layers. So, while sitemaps are built mainly for search engines, they can also make it easier for visitors to navigate if there’s a user-friendly version available.

How Do I Create Sitemap Using WordPress Plugins?

There are numerous plugins on WordPress, So I basically recommend you the plugins I worked with, and they are pretty straightforward on creating a sitemap.

  • Yoast SEO
  • RankMath
  • AIOSEO (All In One SEO)

How to Create Sitemap Using Yoast SEO?

Here’s the step you have to take.

  • Go to your WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New
  • Search for “Yoast SEO” and install the plugin on your site.
  • Once installed, go to Yoast SEO > Settings > XML Sitemaps.

Note: Sitemap feature is enabled by default, so you don’t need to make any changes unless if it’s necessary like if the XML Sitemaps were disabled already.

You can view your sitemap at: https://yourwebsitename.com/sitemap_index.xml

How to Create Sitemap Using RankMath?

Here’s the step you have to take.

  • Go to your WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New
  • Search for “RankMath” and install the plugin on your site.
  • After activation, a setup wizard will appear. Fill in your website’s details.
  • During the setup, the sitemap feature will be enabled by default.

You can view your sitemap at: https://yourwebsitename.com/sitemap_index.xml

How to Create Sitemap Using AIOSEO?

AIO SEO WP Plugin for Sitemap

Here’s the step you have to take.

  • Go to your WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New
  • Search for “AIOSEO” and install the plugin on your site.
  • After installation, go to All In One SEO > Sitemaps
  • Enable the sitemap if it’s not already activated by default.

You can view your sitemap at: https://yourwebsitename.com/sitemap_index.xml

Submit Your Sitemap to Google Search Console

We’ve successfully created a sitemap. It’s time to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console in order to make your sitemap more effective and efficient for indexing.

Note: if you’re new to Google Search Console, you’ll need to go through a verification process to create a property for your website. Without verifying your ownership, you won’t be able to submit your sitemap to Google. 

Don’t worry it’s a simple process, Check out this guide on How to verify your website in Google Search Console to get started.

My Final Thoughts,

Creating and submitting a sitemap is a crucial step for improving your website’s visibility on Google and other search engines as well. Thankfully, we have automated the entire process with just a few clicks and not required any technical skills.

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